324 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



Ulema and, in 1831, his teachings were solemnly condemned by the 

 Sheikh el Hamish, a noted Alim. 



He therefore went on to Mecca where he became the pupil of a 

 famous theologian, Sidi Ahmed ibn Idris el Fasi, head of the con- 

 fraternity of El Khadria, of much influence in Morocco. Here at 

 last Sidi Ben Ali found a mind akin to his own. Master and pupil 

 travelled together to the Yemen, during which missionary journey 

 the former died, having left instructions to his followers to trans- 

 fer their allegiance to his favourite pupil, who thus found himself 

 the head of a definite group of fervent ascetics — the Tarika el Mo- 

 hammedia. His teachings met with their greatest success among 

 the Beduin tribes of the Hejaz and the Yemen, for many of the 

 Meccan townsmen preferred to follow another pupil of Idris, one 

 Mohammed ibn Osman el Mirgani, Sherif. Sidi Ben Ali, therefore, 

 having founded his first zawia at Jebel Abu Cobais made a second 

 journey to the Yemen where he came in touch with the Wahabis, a 

 puritanical confraternity founded in 1746. At all times his hatred 

 of Christian and Turks alike, his opposition to the modern spirit 

 of compromise, appealed more to the nomad tribesmen than to the 

 settled inhabitants of the towns. 



Therefore, when the opposition of the older sheikhs, who ex- 

 pressed doubt as to his orthodoxy, forced him to leave Mecca in 

 1838, he definitely formulated his policy of keeping away from 

 centres of civilisation, and thus avoiding contact with those coun- 

 tries which were under European rule or protection, while uniting 

 the various Beduin tribes in an immense religious organisation 

 which should eventually include the negroid races of the south 

 and stretch in an unbroken line from the Hejaz to the Tuat Oases. 



Passing through Cairo, he went to Siwa, where he was ill with 

 fever for eight months, to Jalo, and to Skekherra where he first 

 came in touch with the Zouias, who were destined to play such a 

 large part in his scheme for the regeneration and the unity of 

 Islam, for this warrior tribe was feared throughout the Northern 

 Deserts, and, having conquered the Tebu in the oases of Taiserbo 

 and Kuf ara, they were a possible link with Darfur and Wadai. 



In 1844 the first African zawia was founded at El Beda in the 

 Gebel Akhdar, where Ben Ali*s eldest son was born the following 

 year, and from it the ekhwan (brothers of the Order) went 

 throughout Cyrenaica and Tripoli, the Fezzan and even as far 

 south as Tibesti, founding zawias and preaching the doctrine of 

 their leader. 



